Mayor Bowser Announces Appointment of HyeSook Chung as Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services and Brenda Donald as Director of Child and Family Services Agency

Monday, December 19, 2016

(Washington, DC) – Today, Mayor Bowser announced the appointments of HyeSook Chung as the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services and Brenda Donald as Director of the Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA). HyeSook Chung is currently the Executive Director of DC Action for Children, a child advocacy organization that analyzes and visualizes data to deliver high-impact outcomes that improve the lives of DC children and families.

Donald has served as Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services since January 2015, and most recently served as both Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services and interim Director of CFSA under Mayor Bowser. She will now return to CFSA as the agency’s full-time director.

Chung brings technical experience from her past work with groups like the National Association of Counties, the DC State Board of Education, the Head Start Quality Improvement Center, and Early Head Start Resource Centers. She was most recently the program officer at the Washington Area Women’s Foundation and active in the child advocacy movement.

“I am excited to welcome HyeSook Chung to my team and grateful to Brenda Donald for all she has done to move my agenda for children, families, seniors and those in need forward,” said Mayor Bowser. “Both women bring a wealth of experience in developing and executing programs that create a safety net for residents in all eight wards.”

Chung serves on numerous advisory boards focused on social change and outcomes for children, including the Annie E. Casey’s KIDS COUNT National Steering Committee, the DC Medical Care Advisory Committee, the DC’s Home Visitation Council, and DataKind.

In addition to having expertise on issues that affect children, Chung is a data and technology enthusiast whose innovative vision for data work has been featured in conferences and publications, such as the Strata Data Conference, IBM Insight Data Conference, NationSwell, the Guardian, The Washington Post, the list of Rockefeller Foundation’s Top 100 Innovative NGOs, and The Classy Awards. In November 2012, she was named a “Dynamic Woman of Greater Washington” by DC Magazine in an issue featuring the people from the Greater DC area moving the region into the second digital act as well as some of the region’s most dynamic female business leaders. Chung was a member of Leadership Greater Washington’s 2012 class, and in 2013, she was awarded Washington Area Toyota Dealer’s Tribute to Working Women Award.

Chung holds an M.S.W. from Boston University with a particular focus on non-profit management. She is a proud mother of two DC Public Schools students.

“Mayor Bowser has charged me with continuing to lead many of the reforms she started since taking office - specifically utilizing my background in data to root out inefficiencies and improve the quality of services we provide as a government,” said Chung. “I will focus on using data to provide the highest quality, most efficient services in order to improve outcomes for our very young, our oldest and most vulnerable residents.”

After three years as the Director of CFSA in the previous administration, Donald joined the Bowser Administration as Deputy Mayor for Health on Human Services on January 2, 2015 and was charged with ensuring residents of all ages receive the services they need to lead healthy and productive lives in Washington, DC. Donald brings an extensive background to CFSA, having previously served as its first Chief of Staff from 2001 to 2004 and then as Director until 2005. She later returned as the agency’s Director in 2012, a role she stayed in until she became Deputy Mayor.

As the Director of CFSA, Donald was widely credited with accelerating DC's ongoing child welfare reform and establishing a host of performance improvements. Within her first two months, she established a strategic agenda known as the Four Pillars that focused Washington, DC’s child welfare system on improving outcomes for children, youth, and families. One of her most notable accomplishments was setting into practice a series of reforms which have dramatically reduced the number of DC youth in foster care from about 1,800 at the start of fiscal year 2012 to under 1,000 today.

“I am pleased that Mayor Bowser agreed to my request to return to CFSA and serve full-time as its director,” said Donald. “I look forward to again working full-time within the agency to achieve the Mayor's vision of a city that leaves no one behind and puts our most vulnerable residents first.”